Troubleshooting Agile

Celebrate a year of insights with a discussion on the perils of normalisation of deviance in tech. Flickering tests lead to deeper issues that can mirror historical disasters. The conversation emphasizes the necessity of psychological safety, encouraging team members to voice concerns about risks. Pair programming is revealed as a powerful tool for enhancing team alignment and communication. Discover innovative strategies for fostering safety in high-risk environments like oil rigs, spotlighting the need for open dialogues and support.

We've been talking about building trust in agile teams by aligning your stories; an important ingredient for this is being predictable, so others can believe you actually have a story they can align with. We tell an extended story about a developer with a severely misaligned story and how Squirrel's route to trust with him included crawling around on the floor reconfiguring cables. SHOW LINKS: - Argyris, Espoused Theory vs Theory in Use: http://infed.org/mobi/chris-argyris-theories-of-action-double-loop-learning-and-organizational-learning/#_Theories_of_action - Previous podcast on acting unilaterally: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/how-to-fail-by-acting-unilaterally-part-iv - Annotated Ladder of Inference diagram: http://troubleshootingagile.com/docs/TheLadderOfInference.pdf - Schwarz, Eight Behaviours for Smarter Teams: https://www.csu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/917018/Eight-Behaviors-for-Smarter-Teams-2.pdf *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us: see link on troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

We answer a listener question about standups for feature teams, but we think the problem is actually a larger one of disengagement. A common symptom is people sitting down for their standup (oxymoron alert!) We recommend some ways to overcome disengagement using Coherence Busting and the Ladder of Inference, tools we've been discussing on recent podcasts. SHOW LINKS: - Feature teams: http://featureteams.org - Ladder of Inference episodes: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/test-driven-development-for-people and https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/introspection-with-the-ladder-of-inference - Coherence busting: https://blog.jeffreyfredrick.com/2016/04/08/coherence-busting-explained/ and https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/removing-the-blame-frame *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us: see link on troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

Last time we talked about sharing reasoning and building trust in your agile team using TDD for People, one way to use the Ladder of Inference. Today we look at how the Ladder can help you discover your own reasoning as well, to discover ways to promote mutual learning with your own behaviour. SHOW LINKS: - Top Business Podcasts for CEOs, from Fiona Anderson: https://www.rocktime.co.uk/insights/listen-and-learn-the-art-of-podcasting-for-ceos/ - The Ladder of Inference (annotated by Jeffrey): http://troubleshootingagile.com/docs/TheLadderOfInference.pdf - The London Organisational Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/London-Action-Science-Meetup/ - Thinking Fast and Slow, Kahneman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us: see link on troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

As promised, we start describing our favourite trust-building technique: the Ladder of Inference. Our take this week is on using the Ladder to understand someone else's reasoning and align your stories, creating trust as a foundation for further improvement in your agile team. Surprisingly, the experience of using the Ladder in this way is similar to Test-Driven Development: careful, understandable, small steps with confidence, and meaningful signals from both success and failure. SHOW LINKS: - Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003ELY7OW/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 - The Ladder of Inference (annotated by Jeffrey): http://troubleshootingagile.com/docs/TheLadderOfInference.pdf - Cognitive biases book and more: https://youarenotsosmart.com/ - Schwarz on unilateral control (again!): http://www.schwarzassociates.com/managing-performance/how-unilateral-control-undermines-team-results-and-relationships-2/ - TDD for people video: https://www.douglassquirrel.com/how-i-work.html - Schwarz 8 behaviours (Paula/Ted are on page 4): https://www.csu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/917018/Eight-Behaviors-for-Smarter-Teams-2.pdf *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us: see link on troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

We start previewing the ideas in our forthcoming book on using conversations to improve your agile results. First up: why you need trust before you do anything else (including hold a standup, write unit tests, or move your desks together). Next week, a step-by-step technique to build trust. SHOW LINKS: - The first thing to build is trust, Brad Appleton: http://bradapp.blogspot.com/2005/02/first-thing-to-build-is-trust.html - Psychological safety: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2666999?origin=JSTOR-pdf&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents - The story I'm telling myself: https://blog.jeffreyfredrick.com/2015/08/31/the-story-im-making-up/ - Naive realism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_%28psychology%29 and previous TA episode: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/how-to-fail-by-acting-unilaterally-part-i *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us: see link on troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

We cap our five-part series on undermining your agile team with the pinnacle of ineffective behaviour: the belief that you are not contributing to the problem. Inaccurate estimates, useless meetings, directionless standups - so long as you're sure all these are entirely someone else's fault, you'll be sure never to fix them, and thus leave your team high and dry. Master this technique and never worry about having an effective team again! Bonus at the end on what's next for the podcast... SHOW LINKS: - Roger Schwarz on unilateral control: http://www.schwarzassociates.com/managing-performance/how-unilateral-control-undermines-team-results-and-relationships-2/ - Belief bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief_bias - Emotional reasoning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_reasoning *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us: see link on troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

Why listen to team members and peers when your feelings and behaviours are obviously justified? We continue our how-to series on undermining your agile team with two stories about people who, believing they are clearly correct about how to improve their agile teams, move to shut down communication and manipulate the environment to ensure their approaches are adopted - with, predictably, zero internal commitment from the rest of the team. SHOW LINKS: - Roger Schwarz on unilateral control: http://www.schwarzassociates.com/managing-performance/how-unilateral-control-undermines-team-results-and-relationships-2/ - Jeffrey's "Frustrated? It's Probably Your Fault" session: https://blog.jeffreyfredrick.com/2015/07/18/video-frustrated-it-is-probably-your-fault/ - Model I characteristics: http://infed.org/mobi/chris-argyris-theories-of-action-double-loop-learning-and-organizational-learning/#_Model_I_and *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us: see link on troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

Another in our top tips for ensuring your agile team does not achieve its goals - assume you have pure motives and others are actively malicious. We describe several helpful biases that, if adopted, can help you take up this mindset, and describe a founder duo with negative beliefs about each other who had mastered the art of "Getting to No" - until they read Fisher/Ury and discovered they actually had a common interest and positive motives. SHOW LINKS: - Roger Schwarz on unilateral control: http://www.schwarzassociates.com/managing-performance/how-unilateral-control-undermines-team-results-and-relationships-2/ - Geoff Watts Top Ten Agile Podcasts: https://twitter.com/geoffcwatts/status/1057310923218698241 - Biases: Bias blind spot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_blind_spot , Negativity bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias , and naïve cynicism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_cynicism - Getting To Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_to_Yes *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us: see link on troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

More this week on ways to fail with agile by making unilateral assumptions - this week's tip is to believe you are right and everyone else is wrong. In fact, even the underlying assumption that there is a single right answer should get you a long way to fracturing your team and ensuring discord. Squirrel tells a story of someone particularly skilled at explaining why he knows the One True Agile Way and Jeffrey recalls that Mark Twain quote about the problem being what you know that ain't so (and one thing that ain't so is that the quote is from Mark Twain!) SHOW LINKS: - Roger Schwarz on unilateral control: http://www.schwarzassociates.com/managing-performance/how-unilateral-control-undermines-team-results-and-relationships-2/ - Dan North: https://dannorth.net/ - Jon Allspaw on the root cause fallacy: https://www.kitchensoap.com/2012/02/10/each-necessary-but-only-jointly-sufficient/ - Twain's quote (or not): http://marktwainstudies.com/the-apocryphal-twain-things-we-know-that-just-aint-so/ *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us: see link on troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2